Exploring the Impact of Electronic Word of Mouth and Property Characteristics on Customers’ Online Booking Decision

The proliferation of the internet has helped many businesses to attract potential customers from traditional to the online channel. The customers' decision making on the online channel is affected by various factors such as other customer reviews, website quality, and property characteristics as well as customers personal profile. In this context, this study investigates the role of online customer reviews and key elements of the reviews page, particularly the elements that are poorly investigated in previous, as well as property characteristics in customers' online hotel booking decision. A conceptual model has been proposed to measure the impact of these factors on customers decision making. The model is empirically tested with a data obtained from customers of booking.com having various backgrounds and nationalities. Structural Equation Modelling using SmartPLS 3.2 has been used to test the relationships in the suggested model. The results show a significant impact of online review factors such as filters, quality, quantity, recency, valence along with property characteristics on customers booking decision. The study also confirms the moderating effects of Gender and Travel Purpose on some of the proposed relationships in the conceptual model. The paper concludes by mentioning the limitations and recommendations for future work as well as implications for the academicians and managers.